Well, out of all the books I've reviewed for Linux Journal, this is the one with which I was least
satisfied. As a writer myself, I take no great pleasure in having
to criticize another's work. But in this instance, I must.

This is not a fat book—and there's nothing wrong with that,
too many computer books are padded out—but, unfortunately in this
instance, the lean has been cut away with the fat. Let me step
through the chapters and explain what's wrong.

Part I

After the first chapter, on installing Red Hat, we move to
chapter 2, “Navigating Linux”, a straightforward although
somewhat brief introduction to the shell. It is brief at least
partly because, to quote the authors, “this book relies heavily on
the use of the graphical X interface”. This is an unwise
dependence. The command line is not an optional alternative. There
is no unified graphical interface to administering a Linux box;
it's command line or bust. Sugaring the pill in the way our authors
attempt to do simply does not work.

Chapter 3, on editing files, is a decent if short
introduction to joe and vi. It would be greatly improved by the
inclusion of a command summary for each editor considered.

Chapter 4, configuring the X Window System, is in my view out
of place in the book; but even so, it is inadequate. It is far too
short, and does little more than tell the user to run
Xconfigurator.

Chapter 5, on getting help, is a concise guide to sources for
further Linux information.

We start with the sixth chapter, on system administration.
This is wholly inadequate. It attempts to paper over the complexity
of this job by introducing the user to some graphical tools bundled
with Red Hat. As I've said above, this approach is fundamentally
misguided.

Chapter 7, Managing Your Network, is better, but again it
suffers from the fault of simply directing the reader elsewhere
when it comes to the hard stuff. For example, “The experienced
network administrator can modify any of these configuration files
by hand ... Just be aware that the scripts and files are often
interrelated with each other and modifying one can change another's
behaviour. You can view the man pages of these to gain more
understanding of the services”. Well, quite! An explanation of the
complex structure of Red Hat's System V style rc file layout would
have been particularly helpful here. Simply referring the reader to
the man pages is a cop-out.

Following is a chapter on Samba and one on printers. In the
latter, there is no explanation of /etc/printcap, the basic printer
config file on every Linux system. We are shown some GUI tool to
make changes. We leave the chapter much as we entered it, with no
understanding of how printers work under Linux, nor how to
configure them.

Chapter 10, backups, is basically an explanation of the
Arkeia backup software bundled on the companion CD-ROM. I found it
a good guide to using the software.

Part III, Connecting Your Network to the Internet, starts
with Chapter 11 on connecting to the Internet. Off we go
again—“Using the network configuration”—but no explanation of
what this program is actually doing. “Configuring a DNS server
from scratch can be a very complex task”, a task which the authors
duck by pointing the reader to a few example files on the CD. It
would have been better to leave the topic out altogether than deal
with it so half-heartedly.

As a side note, dip has been obsolete for years. Why no
mention of pppd? To their credit, the authors do give an
introduction to using diald.

Chapter 12 covers creating a simple firewall. Although short,
this chapter is good. It doesn't avoid explaining the command
necessary to set up a Linux packet-filtering firewall, but again,
there is no explanation of why the firewall rules listed are
used.

Chapter 13 is on configuring a Linux e-mail server. This is
very bad—one and a half pages on Sendmail! They take up more space
in explaining how to use the Netscape e-mail client. Simply put,
this chapter will not tell you how to configure a Linux e-mail
server.

Part IV takes a complete change of focus, looking at “office
productivity” tools, then back to networking by installing Apache.
The latter chapter is again ridiculously short, and plainly omits
any detailed explanation of exactly how Apache is configured. As
for the former, well, given the size of the book, they can either
do a good job of explaining how to use Linux as the main server for
a small business, or they can look at it as a desktop platform.
There isn't space for both. Perhaps this partially explains why the
book ends up doing neither.

We finish with a curious document, the IDG Books Worldwide
Inc. End-User License Agreement, which contains the following
gems:

1. License Grant. IDGB grants to you (either an
individual or entity) a non-exclusive license to use one copy of
the enclosed software program(s) (collectively, “the Software”)
solely for your own personal or business purposes on a single
computer (with a standard computer or a workstation component of a
multiuser network). [...]

Whoa! You what?

2. Ownership. IDGB is the owner of all right,
title and interest, including copyright, in and to the compilation
of the Software [...]

Seems reasonable. Copyright on the
compilation, not on the software
itself.

3. Restrictions on Use and Transfer.

(a) You may only (i) make one copy of the Software for backup
or archival purposes [...] You may not (i) rent or lease the
Software, (ii) copy or reproduce the Software through a LAN or
other network system [...], or (iii) modify, adapt, or create
derivative works based on the Software.

and a lot more of the same. This is just plain wrong, it
seems to me.

4. Restrictions on Use of Individual Programs.
[...] None of the material on this Software Media or listed in this
book may ever be redistributed, in original or modified form, for
commercial purposes.

Hey—I can do what I want with Red Hat, including burning and
selling my own CDs.

The book also includes the GPL (right after this license) and
a note to the effect that the Red Hat distribution may be used “in
accordance with the GNU General Public License” In which case,
surely the IDG license does not apply to the
Software? So why are they bothering to print it in the book?

Insofar as this license agreement purports to apply to the
Linux components of the CDs bundled with the book, then it is plain
wrong. For instance, we read, “You may only (i) make one copy of
the Software for backup or archival purposes”. The only copyright
IDGB has here is to the bundle itself; that is to say, to the
collection. I can make as many copies of Red Hat as I like, and
IDGB can do nothing to stop me. This license is out of place in a
book about open source.

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